If a wicked person were released from Hell because of professing belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, where would he go? He certainly would not be allowed to enter the new Jerusalem.

The wicked cannot enter through the gates into the new Jerusalem because they practice wickedness. They do not keep God's commandments. Would we change this "by grace" and turn the holy city into the suburbs of Hell?

Where would the wicked go? To some area where there are other wicked people who also have been released from Hell and death because of their belief in Christ?

The reason that nowhere in the New Testament is the salvation that is offered through the Lord Jesus Christ described as deliverance from Hell is that this is not the nature or purpose of the Christian salvation.

The Lord Jesus came to find and to save the lost. Jesus came to save us, not to deliver us from the penalty of Hell. We belong in Hell as long we practice wickedness.

What does it mean to be saved? It means to be delivered from wickedness so the Father can receive us to Himself and to the inheritance assigned by the Word of God to the sons of God.

There is a total difference between viewing the Christian salvation as a pass from Hell to Heaven, and viewing the Christian salvation as the re-creating of the human personality so that the individual can be received of the Father. The one is not scriptural and is destructive. The other is scriptural and results in all the rewards and blessing we associate with being saved.

Somewhere in the early history of the Christian Church the Gospel of the Kingdom of God was changed from the making of a new creature, into deliverance from Hell and the obtaining of eternal residence in the spirit Paradise. This mythology, akin to and derived from the other religions of the world, has persisted to the present hour and accounts for the spiritual immaturity of the Christian people.

It is time now for the message we preach to be changed from that which is not scriptural and destructive to that which is scriptural and redemptive.

But isn't our purpose to save people from Hell and death? No, it is not. The wicked always will be in Hell and death. That is where they belong. If they were released into God's Paradise then Paradise would be filled with Hell and death. Isn't that true?

When we come to the sinner and tell him that if he will accept Christ he will not go to Hell when he dies we mislead him completely concerning the plan of the Lord for his life. We start him off on the wrong foot, with an incorrect view of what God is requiring of him.

What we should be saying is this:

You are a sinner and cannot come to God as you are.

No matter how hard you try to make yourself presentable to God you cannot succeed. You were born in sin. The guilt of Adam's sin as well as your own sin has cut you off from God.

The Lord Jesus shed His blood on the cross of Calvary to satisfy God's judgment concerning the guilt of your sin. If you will put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, God will forgive your sin.

God will give you eternal life by placing His Spirit within you.

You will be born again, meaning Christ has been born in you.

To be continued.